Hiya,
First of all, thank you soo much for the wonderful Podcasts!! I’ve been very hard on myself the past year, life really did get in the way; but now I know that even then I should have kept on the right path and true to myself. I have newfound faith now, more motivation than before, and a realization that only I can make these changes!
Here’s my background story…
I live at home with my parents currently, where my mother is overweight as well. She is more than overweight however, and drinks a lot of sodas, has a lot of sweets around the house.. I’ve tried assisting her in picking better choices. So it is rough to stay motivated, when she constantly asks me if I want any, and I’ve made it fairly clear. :( I love my parents though, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that it is rough having that influence and tempation of food.
I started trying to lose weight years ago; I’m 26 years old.. I say 2002 was when I started taking better care of myself .. I was at nearly 215; eating healthy, walking, and a small gym that I went to helped me to drop to about the mid 190’s. I kept up after that, I joined a big chain gym and kept to my eating / workout habits. In the Summer of 2004, I hit my lowest of 164.5 lbs.! After that though, I started going back up the weight gain chain. Emotional problems (I can be an emotional eater) as well as plenty of life changing troubles popped up, it threw me off my normal balance and by Summer of 2005, I had gained back 10 lbs.. putting me about 175.5. Even through 2004-2005 I kept to my normal training, but I teetered on and off my path.
As of right now I’m at 198 (probably a few lbs. less actually but you know how it is) .. Back in late April I noticed I was about 206 lbs.. I finally got tired of it all and got back fully to my true weight loss path around May 1st.. Well that following weekend on my way to the gym, a woman ran a red light right into my car. I actually have a back problem due to a hit-n-run that occured back in 2000 (the person got away :( ) .. so this didn’t help my situation. I was out for a week following as I was feeling a lot of muscle aches from the hit. When I finally got to the gym it was nearly mid May and since then I’ve been striving to get back into stride; I have been keeping up with my healthy eating, and for 2 weeks now have been going 6 days a week to the gym as well as staying firm to eating well.
Life did cause its problems, but I see where I failed. I was not exercising as much, but I didn’t keep to eating like I should have, and when I didn’t the lbs. just kept adding. I’m not willing to let that go anymore; it’s all about moving! I feel terrible for what I’ve allowed, all the hard work I put in and now I feel like I’m at the same spot.
I’m 5’7”, 198 or so lbs., and I have a large frame. I workout 6 days a week, 3 of them are which Weight Training days and 3 are all Cardio.
Weight Training days include 30 mins of Cardio first .. then I go onto the actual WT where I focus on most every muscle. 2 sets of 10 reps, and there are about 17 machines (with 2 of them being one leg at a time). Takes about 1hr 15 - 1hr 25 mins… (45-55 mins of WT)
Cardio days are a full hour of Cardio, plus working on my abs for about 7 mins.
As for eathing healthy, I stick to a max 1600 calories or less a day. I eat 3 meals, 2 snacks. I stick to low fat meals. All I’ll touch is chicken or fish, I make sure to calorie count and my fat intake doesn’t go above 15g a day! ^.^ Plenty of veggies and fruit too! All I’ll drink is water, nothing else. In fact I have a taste for Crystal Light… so anywhere between 8-10 glasses of water per day as well.
Thanks to all the motivation I see here in MTM Land and the Podcasts, it’s given me new motivation and I’m not going to let myself give up this time! It’s either now or never!! 
Any suggestions or questions feel free!!! I’m very happy to be here!!
Keep up your wonderful Podcasts!! Cheers to all!
Akane-chan
